


Money Maker

by sister_dear



Series: How to Thrive in a Radioactive Wasteland [4]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Background Relationships, Disabled Character, F/F, F/M, Gen, Pre-Relationship, background Cait/Female Sole Survivor, hints at future Cait/MacCready/Sole Survivor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-06-01 06:15:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6504115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sister_dear/pseuds/sister_dear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s expecting a cabin in the middle of nowhere. A small farm, maybe, though he can’t imagine who’d be working it. Ada isn’t the farming type. They veer off the road and around a tall, crumbling pre-war structure, and it’s no cabin that comes into view. A wide expanse of concrete, another pre-war building on the far end, but far more important, a raider camp. It’s a small one, granted, a solid ring of fences with turrets, tents, and nasty looking poles poking up from inside, but still definitely a raider camp. </p><p>“Thought you said you had a house here,” he says, reaching for his gun.</p><p>(The stories in this series are only vaguely related and do not need to be read from the beginning.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Money Maker

Cait is almost recovered from a nasty gut wound but still not quite up to travel, so she’s staying at Hangman’s Alley with Dogmeat while RJ goes with Ada to “check up on my other place up north.”

He’s expecting a cabin in the middle of nowhere. A small farm, maybe, though he can’t imagine who’d be working it. Ada isn’t the farming type. They veer off the road and around a tall, crumbling pre-war structure, and it’s no cabin that comes into view. A wide expanse of concrete, another pre-war building on the far end, but far more important, a raider camp. It’s a small one, granted, a solid ring of fences with turrets, tents, and nasty looking poles poking up from inside, but still definitely a raider camp. 

“Thought you said you had a house here,” he says, reaching for his gun. Maybe the house is nearby, and she doesn’t want raiders settling this close? The camp does look relatively new, no bodies on pikes, just the occasional skull. 

“I do.” She keeps walking straight towards the camp. Her right hand isn’t anywhere near either of her weapons, the stump of the left swinging loosely at her side. There’s a bad moment as she steps fearlessly into range of the nearest turret, but it doesn’t even hitch in its steady back and forth, sweeping the landscape above their heads. Heart in his throat, RJ follows. He keeps behind her. God help him, he’s come to trust her far more quickly than he ought, but this wouldn’t be the first time he’s seen her charge straight into a barrage of bullets. 

No one challenges them as they draw near, and then they’re at the gate, and through it, and still no one is shooting at them. Ada swings the gate casually shut. RJ’s adrenaline-fueled mind takes in the interior of the camp in one swift sweep. 

There is absolutely no one here. No raiders. No settlers, for that matter. Just a tiny shack off to the left and a large pool of water to the right, what looks like two water purifiers hooked up to a single large generator. The walls and steady chugging of the turrets must mask the noise of the generator from outside, because he doesn’t notice the noise until he’s looking at the thing. 

This is clearly no raider camp. Ada is smirking at him. He can recognize when he’s been had. “Okay, you got me,” he admits. “Nice setup.”

She waves the comment off, but she isn’t hiding the satisfied tug at the corner of her mouth or the way her eyes crinkle behind black rimmed glasses. She indicates the shack. “Welcome to Starlight. You can put your stuff in there. Only one bed, but I figure you won’t mind sharing.” She leers. It pulls at the scars on the left side of her face. He smirks back. He and Cait and Ada have been flirting shamelessly since day one. Once he’d figured out neither of them was going to put a knife in his back, he’d taken to joining them in their habitual nightly huddle for warmth when they were on the road. Sharing a bed is nothing new. 

He is starting to think that all the flirting might be a genuine invitation. He’s damn sure Cait means it, but he hasn’t quite figured out Ada. Getting between his employer and her lover is not a situation he cares to put himself in if they’re not both willing to have him there, so he’s playing dumb for now. He's not sure what he'll do if Cait pushes any more without some kind of indication from Ada what she thinks of it.

And while he’s been standing here with his mind a million miles away, Ada has dropped her pack by the water’s edge instead of taking it over to the house like she’d suggested and is working on the straps of her leg armor. Get your brain out of your pants, MacCready, he chides himself. “Want help?” Sometimes she does, sometimes she doesn’t. The answering grunt this time is an affirmative one, so he drops his pack next to hers and helps her strip off armor and boots. She waves him off once she’s down to socks. 

“Grab me the roll of tools off that shelf.”

The shelving in question is next to the generator and mostly full of empty Nuka Cola bottles, milk jars, tin cans, and similar containers. There is one cloth wrapped bundle that feels like it has something metal inside. He unrolls it just enough to see the handle of a wrench. 

A splash. He turns. Ada is in the water, feet bare and pants rolled up past her knees. “Screwdriver,” she commands. He watches as she wades to the purifiers and sets about removing panels, checking for damage and wear. She switches to holding the screwdriver with her teeth once she has a screw loose, working it the rest of the way free with her hand and slipping it into a pocket once she has it out. It takes a while. If she wants more help, she’ll ask for it. He settles back on his heels, watching the turrets and Ada in turn, comfortable in the shade provided by the fake raider tents. It’s not a bad way to protect an unmanned water purification rig, really. Wouldn't work further south, where everyone, raiders included, lives practically on top of everyone else. Up here the population is much more sparse. Less reason for one raider gang to come knocking on the doors of the next, and the settlers won't make a fuss so long as there's no one actively attacking their homesteads. Except… “How are they not running that little puddle dry?”

“There’s some kind of underground source feeding it. Bombs probably opened new cracks to the surface. Had to clear out some toxic waste; the first few batches weren’t drinkable. But now…” She shrugs, casts a smug look back over her shoulder as she finishes putting the last panel back on. She wades back towards him and hands over the screwdriver. “Put that away and hand me an empty bottle.”

He does as asked. She pulls a hose free on the nearest purifier, sticks it into the neck of the bottle, then pins the bottle between her stump and torso so she can turn a handle on the purifier. Clear water pours into the glass, sparkling in the sun. He has a fresh container waiting when she comes back over. 

“There’s corks and leather in the box on the bottom shelf,” she says after they’ve traded off the fifth bottle. He pulls the box out and starts securing the tops in between passing her fresh bottles. His estimation of the value of this little operation rises with every container of fresh water she brings back. 

“How often do you come up here?” He’s mentally calculating the cost of the materials spent getting this place set up against the caps they’ll get selling all this. Everything scavenged, knowing her, the only ongoing cost whatever it took to keep the turret ammo supply full and the equipment in good nick. 

“About once a month,” she says. She’s just now filling the first bottle from the second purifier. "We'll spread out where we sell it. The vendors know I have a source, but I don't want them figuring out how much I'm actually getting and trying to follow me back here." RJ looks at the growing collection gathered around his feet and whistles. Cheap, easy caps. Not as many as they get selling off weapons collected from the dead, but minus the cost of bullets and risk of injury. He’s starting to think he made the right choice in sticking around.


End file.
